Winter Gathering
We have an interesting tradition here at school. One day each winter we invite all our parents into classes to see what their kids go through every day. It’s not the most authentic experience, because teachers try to plan something that will be interesting for both the students and parents. We have 35 minutes per class on this particular Saturday. I decided to gone experiential ed with today’s classes. In my design class we worked on setting goals for the upcoming project and setting partner pairs who would give feedback to each other. In my Art Foundation class I had them to do an exercise where they needed to arrange paint sample cards as teams. They could use the wall and tape. One group had to organize the colors by hue. The other team had to organize the colors by value. They inevitably run into the opposite problem in each group. In the group that had to arrange based on hue, they find that it’s hard to do that without thinking about value. In the one that is organized by value they find its difficult if they don’t also consider value. They then strategized for how they’ll adjust their method for the next time. In the third class we played a timeline game. I put a bunch of tiles in a row on the ground and have the students stand on them. The rules are that they can’t have more than one person standing on a tile at any time. They’re each given a document from a particular point in Chinese History. Essentially they’re a jumbled timeline and they need to organize themselves. So for the kids it’s a mixed experience because usually when I do those activities there’s no one else watching. When their parents are watching, there’s added anxiety, so it’s an interesting experience, especially when the parrots are simply observers. Next time I want to figure out a way to involve the parents as participants.
